The Stuff To Drive a Man Mad
by SocietalFlub
Summary: A dark read, beware-nothing happy going on up in here. Sherlock meets with his greatest adversary since Moriarty, and this guy's got something nasty up his sleeve.


_I want to show you something. Come to the pool? H_

_What if I don't? SH_

_I don't think you could even fathom. Pretty please will you come? H_

_Fine._

The cab let Sherlock Holmes off at the same swimming pool where he and the villain called Moriarty had first met in person thirty years before. Eerily, it looked exactly as he remembered.

Sherlock wondered what his greatest adversary since Moriarty could possibly want to 'show' him. It had been nearly a year since the two had last met; Sherlock hadn't even heard new of his whereabouts from the Yard.

Sherlock walked in to the poolhouse, surveying every corner for anything that might become of danger to him. The water was practically still, the underwater lights making the surface seem to sparkle. The air smelled of chlorine, a smell that upset Sherlock even to that day, because it triggered the anxiety Sherlock had felt the last time he was there, seeing his best friend strapped to semtex, snipers aimed at John. The overhead lights were out, save for one on the far side of the pool furthest from the entrance. Sherlock could make out a man's figure in the shadows, and was taken aback as the man walked into the rectangle of light.

'Hallo,' called the tall young man in the black suit. 'It's been ages, I've missed you so.' He paused. 'There now, haven't you missed me?'

Eyes narrowed, Sherlock spoke. 'What is it you wanted to show me?'

'Oh yes! Oh, I've been so excited to see you, I nearly forgot!' he said with a smile so sickening it gave Sherlock gooseflesh.

'Dear me, will you be surprised.' The man giggled maliciously, his eyes the colour of glaciers glinting. 'Before I show you, however, I'd like to remind you of your dear friend Mr Moriarty. Ah, Moriarty, I wish I'd had the chance to meet him. He's given me such inspiration. Oh, don't worry, I've not got snipers,' he added as Sherlock frantically looked to the rafters. 'No, I've got something much better up my sleeve. Now, you must be wondering how dear old Jim plays a part in this: he knew,' the lanky man continued, 'that your weakness is the ones that you love.'

Sherlock, then aged 62, wasn't as limber as he had been in his prime. He walked slowly-both because his joints weren't as cooperative as they used to be, and out of caution- towards the younger man.

'You really shouldn't have let your guard down all those years ago, grown to love the man you later married, made friends with your co-workers. It's a sign of weakness, caring. How glad I am that I didn't inherit that from you, my dear father.'

'Hamish, what is the purpose of this?'

'Now, now. Dear old Dad always taught patience, haven't you learned it by now? Lucky for you, I was just getting to that. Tonight, you are going to witness something beautiful. Death has always fascinated you, has it not? Tonight, you get to witness it first-hand. I'm not going to kill you, Father. That would be no fun.'

Unbuttoning his blazer, the young man called Hamish grinned. Strapped to his person was what appeared to Sherlock, who had enough experience in the field to determine what was and wasn't, a bomb. A cluster of colourful wires looped over his shoulder and over Hamish's torso, passing through an unbuttoned portion of his shirt, presumably sticking to his bare skin.

'This bomb is a very special kind. It works not by explosives, but electrical pulses. Anyone in the surrounding area remains untouched, but it will stop my heart. One touch of this pretty red button, here, and I will fall,' he explained, pulling a small, simplistic remote from his trouser pocket.

'Stoicism was your strong suit, I heard. Before dear Johnny came along, that is. I suppose, in a way, this is his fault. He turned you soft, and he's going to suffer for it. He will, and so will you.

'Oh, why, why, WHY must the brilliant always be... tainted by the daft, the emotional?!' Hamish said, voice raising. 'I might have liked you, might have spared you the suffering if you just hadn't given in to the mundane. If you hadn't given in to this tedious life of caring, the world could have been so much more brilliant. People looked up to you, you could have taught them what had worked for thirty-some years-you could have taught the world to stop caring. Because _you_ never needed to care. Your lack of emotion helped you to become brilliant.

'But when you learned to love, you lost it. You became nothing. What I saw from you in your work was nothing compared to the stories I'd heard of your brilliance.'

Sherlock hadn't interjected throughout the whole of his son's speech. He was becoming weak at the knees with every word Hamish said.

'Any questions before I—and I use the term lightly—leave, Father?'

Sherlock gulped.

'Just so I understand, you're killing yourself... because people care about you?'

'Precisely. I want people to suffer. I could torture them, and that's all well and good, what dear Jim failed to see was that it's not the worst someone could do. Psychological torture—now that's the stuff that could destroy a man.

'You were brilliant, Father. Were. Once you started to feel, started to love, that intellect left you. I figure that once people see how terrible emotions really are, they'll stop feeling them and use that emptiness to strive to become your sort of brilliant. This is my deed to society in the hopes that just a few less people exhibit that stupidity I despise. Besides, I'm twenty-five, failed uni, and have no future. I'm not much good here anyway.

'Well, now, dear Father, is where you and I must part.'

Before Sherlock had a chance to say anything, with a zapping sound, Hamish fell.

**Hope you liked this, I've revised it and like it much better than the original. If people are interested, I have an idea in mind for a follow-up chapter, but that'll probably be the end unless by the deed of some miraculous entity I suddenly become inspired. 'Hamish's Legacy,' I could call it. But for now, it's a one-shot. Let me know your thoughts!**


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